Citizenship, a right that concerns over a million young people and which is now defended by many local administrators, signatories of a Manifesto

ROMA – The premise: thirty years have passed since the promulgation of the Law 91/1992 which regulates the acquisition of Citizenship. Since then, Italy has gone through countless changes and profound transformations; the social fabric is much more varied, populated with citizens from all over the world. That law was enacted to remove any possible discrimination between citizens born in the national territory and those descendants of people who had chosen to emigrate and move to our country. Well: today that is the same law, but it denies the rights and discriminates against those born and/or raised in Italy.

The “On the right side of history” campaign. The new national campaign “On the Right Side of History” is an initiative promoted by Network for Citizenship Reform to claim the recognition of over a million young people born and/or raised in Italy. “The right to citizenship is a strategic priority for the future of our country – we read on the Campaign website – and mobilizing to make it happen is the responsibility of each of us. Just as past battles have contributed to defining the Italy we know today, so today we speak up and decide to put ourselves on the right side of history.”

The presentation of the administrators’ manifesto. Tomorrow, Wednesday 24 April, at 4.30 pm, in Rome, in the editorial office of Uncomfortablein Via Carlo Emanuele I, 26 the Administrators’ manifesto of the administrators who take action to protect the right of citizenship. It is a document written in recent months by activists of the campaign “On the right side of history”, in collaboration with several local administrators, including many councilors of the new generations, such as Siid Negash and Detjon Begaj (Bologna), Raisa Labaran (Brescia), Veronica Atitsogbe (Verona) and others. The Manifesto it immediately collected important signatures during the incubation phase such as those of the mayors Lepore and Lo Russo of Bologna and Turin.

The value and meaning of Citizenship. The need to write a manifesto that looks at local administrators arises from the recognition that it is in the local and community dimension that the value and meaning of citizenship is understood. And it is the dimension in which the inadequacy of the current 1992 law is best understood. This text represents a commitment on the part of those who are called upon to administer cities to ensure that all possible measures are implemented in the territory to protect the rights of people without citizenship, and at the same time to put pressure on national politics to change the law. With the next round of elections approaching, with more than 3,500 municipalities voting, this is the best time to present this manifesto, which from today can also be signed by candidates in the next elections.

They will speak:

– Ouidad Bakkali (citizenship parliamentary intergroup)

– Massimiliano Smeriglio (TB MEP)

– Matteo Lepore (mayor of Bologna)

– Gaia Romani (councillor of Milan)

– Carlo Barone (vice-mayor of San Donato Milanese)

– Marwa Mahmoud (councillor of Reggio Emilia)

– Siid Negash (councillor Bologna)

– Giacomo Tarsitano (councillor of Bologna)

– Veronica Atitsogbe (councillor Verona)

– Nella Converti (Councillor Rome)

– Michela Cicculli (Councillor Rome)

– Giulia Montan (Pinerolo councilor)

– Federico Zappini (Trento councilor)